


World-Shaper

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't think this really counts as RPF?, I just really love dragons ok, It just kinda hints at it but it doesn't mention anyone by name, My First Work in This Fandom, Resurrection, Short One Shot, Slightly based on a piece of cute fanart I saw, So I'm just going with that, this has been bouncing around in my head for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 15:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11188182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Someone has found the cave, and that someone is unhappy that his pet dragon is dead.________________





	World-Shaper

**Author's Note:**

> I had a weird dream and then I saw a piece of cute fanart (it was the one of Matt and his Conclave) and these 800-and-something words are the result. 
> 
> _____________

A wide, dark cavern.

At first glance, it would seem empty. The pools of half-evaporated acid were still and lifeless, the back of the cavern scattered with loose gems and golden coins. It had been picked clean by the rightful owners and residents of the nearby city, fairly recently if the lack of dust was anything to go by. A hulking shape lay against one side, black and glossy, catching the faint fragments of sun that made their way into the space. 

And then, light. 

Dim, faintly purple, emitting from the farthest corner of the cave in a large oval, barely even there at all. It was growing brighter with every second, though, and soon it was nearly blinding. As new shadows were cast, the shape against the wall became clear. It was the form of a dragon- broken, bloody and undeniably dead. Strips of hide had been torn away, it was missing most of its teeth and claws and the jaw hung at an odd angle. Most of what remained was decomposing and decrepit, rapidly rotting, showing large areas of already-crumbling black bone. 

The light rippled once and vanished, as suddenly as it had appeared, plunging the cavern into darkness once more. For a moment, the only sound was the faint echo of dripping water and whistling wind, before the entire cave was illuminated by a brilliant white ball, slightly dimmer than the purple oval had been, that appeared on the ceiling and hung there, swaying slightly. 

And revealed by the light was the figure of a man, or something that looked like one, save for the runes that covered his skin, as though they had been carved with a delicate knife. He stood poised for a second, looking around, before his eyes landed on the dragon. He twitched once, on the brink of movement, then halted and closed his eyes. Frozen, he waited for what seemed to be both hours and mere minutes simultaneously, searching for something without moving. 

 

The light blinked, and a small patch of it drifted down from the ball, coming to settle on a small crack in the wall, near what remained of the treasure pile. It pulsed, flickered and died, and the man opened his eyes. A faint smile touched his face as he carefully made his way to the remnants of the dragon’s hoard. Ignoring the small piles of gold on the ground, he made his way to where the light had fallen and placed his hand in the crack. A few moments later, he found what he was searching for- a black opal, the size of an apple and filled with a dancing light beyond the ordinary for gems of its type. 

With the stone in his hand and a new purpose to his step, the strange man walked back to the dragon and sat before its head. He placed the stone inside the mouth of the beast and his other hand on the front of the face, closing his eyes again. The runes on his skin began to glow with an eerie purple-blue light, channeling flashes of arcane power into the dead creature. 

The room tilted, flipped, flashed with blinding blue light. Wind roared, from nowhere and everywhere at once. Stones soundlessly cracked, the sound of a crashing waterfall resonating through the cave, which suddenly seemed much smaller than before. The dragon’s corpse raised its broken head, lifted its lifeless wings as if to fly- 

And then, starting from the tail and rapidly spreading, it crumbled into a fine black dust. The room righted itself, the light dimming, the noise vanishing as if it had never been. The stones healed, and the dust drifted on the wind for a moment before that, too, vanished.

The man opened his eyes, and for a brief second they glowed like the runes on his skin. He blinked, and they were the eyes of a man again. With a wave of his hand, the dust condensed into a single pile, and he slowly walked towards it. He sat patiently in front of the pile as the light shining from him faded, waiting for… something. There was a calculated intent to the way he sat, staring at what had once been a dragon. 

He sighed, seemingly frustrated, before several of the runes began to glow again. A single flash of power, and a single second where the world hung utterly frozen. The dust shivered, and then exploded up into the air. The man coughed, waved his hand again, and a gust of wind cleared the air. The light blacked out completely, but only for a moment, and when the cavern was lit once again…

Sitting on the floor, its head tilted curiously to one side, was a newly-hatched black dragon. 

For the first time, the man allowed a smile to touch his face as he extended a hand to the hatchling. It nodded, then leapt into the air, clumsily flapping before settling on his shoulder. It quietly chirped something in Draconic, then repeated it, more loudly this time. 

_“Greetings to you, Worldshaper.”_

The man chuckled, scratching the hatchling’s back absently, before saying something back. 

_“Greetings, Umbrasyl. ”_

He clicked his fingers, and the purple oval reappeared. Together, they stepped through, into an unknown world.


End file.
